Abstract

Gas insulated switchgear (GIS) is an important electric power equipment in a substation, and its running state has a significant relationship with stability, security, and reliability of the whole electric power system. Detecting and analyzing the decomposition byproducts of sulfur hexafluoride gas (SF6) is an effective method for GIS state assessment and fault diagnosis. This paper proposes a novel gas sensor based on flower-like ZnO nanorods to detect typical SF6 decompositions. Flower-like ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized via a simple hydrothermal method and characterized by X-ray powder diffraction and field-emission scanning electron microscopy, respectively. The gas sensor was fabricated with a planar-type structure and applied to detect SF6 decomposition products. It shows excellent sensing properties to SO2, SOF2, and SO2F2 with rapid response and recovery time and long-term stability and repeatability. Moreover, the sensor shows a remarkable discrimination among SO2, SOF2, and SO2F2 with high linearity, which makes the prepared sensor a good candidate and a wide application prospect detecting SF6 decomposition products in the future.